Big sensor, big good quality lens, and reasonable number of jiggapixels. Omit any one of the three and the images won't be that good.

Provide all three, and quite possibly the won't be any images, because this medium or large format camera will stay in the closet.

That's right. We carry phones with us all the time. I mean all the time. Some of us even use them as wallets. Soon we'll be using them to start our cars and unlock front doors. So we always have that camera with us.

Which is why I said we should accept what we can get until we find a way of incorporating SLR into a cell phone. It seems impossible today, yeah? HA! Nothing is impossible. Someday there will be an Ars article about a 1mm sq SLR sensor outperforming the best large SLR sensors. Then there will be another article about some new mineral outperforming glass in optics applications. Then a year later Apple, Canon, Nikon Nokia etc. will be using that tech in their products.

This isn't about including a SLR. This is about getting the most performance out of a fixed size of CCD. There's nothing that's been said that suggests a mechanism by which cutting up a CCD and adding back together again gets more performance out of a fixed size of CCD. You *can* put a bigger CCD into a phone, Nokia have shown that. But they have gone about it in a most idiotic way that increases cost and potentially wastes a lot of what they've added.

If this is their strategy, they'll fail the second someone cottons on to this market existing, sells a large-CCD cameraphone without the 41MP gimmick, and so produces a cameraphone that takes better photos and is $200 cheaper. The 808 Pureview, as a camera, is a DSLR price range camera that doesn't take anywhere near DSLR quality photos.

No the article isn't about including a DSLR. It's the same old same old P&S small lens small sensor, but this time with a lot of MPs. I'm talking about including a DSLR camera in cell phones. Or equivalent technology that doesn't exist yet. It will happen someday. Don't hold off on the purchases though, because it may be 10 years.

More light reaches the sensor, but it'll all be hitting the parts of the sensor that you'll be cropping out when you do the digital zoom anyway. There's no free lunch this way, there's only so many literal photons coming through the hole in the front of your camera that came from where you are zooming into. That white paper is nonsense.

What are you talking about? The white paper clearly says that you lose the advantage of the "oversampling" when you zoom in. Pureview gets you the optimal picture quality when you don't zoom and they never claim otherwise. It says so, right at the bottom of page 3.

Wow. Did most of these commenters crawl out from under a rock? The 808 was released last year. To people. They have tested it. It takes great pictures. Sometimes you need to crawl out from under your textbook.

you are clearly not a shutterbug. There isn't a cellphone in existence that can take the same quality photos as a real camera. People seem to think MP is all there is to know to tell if a camera takes good photos. There's a bit more to it than that.

The best camera is the one you have on you. I'm not walking around daily life carrying a Canon EOS. I am walking around carrying my phone. PureView does not take pics that compete with an EOS. It dos, however, take pics of comparable or better quality than virtually every point and shoot on the market. That is fantastic since its also a camera most people would have in their pocket at any given time.

This is a good thing. It raises the bar for portable non-professional or prosumer cameras. It eliminates the need for the point and shoot market. And it raises the minimum quality level.

Also, according to those who review it, it takes exceptionally good pictures, far in excess of any other cell phone and virtually the entire point and shoot market. Which is the point.

Your 'real camera' comment is subjective. My 'real camera' is the one in my hand when I realize I need to photograph something. My HTC 8X is not a EOS either, but when a co-worker of mine had an impromptu wedding in the middle of the workday, my 8X took reasonably good pictures. There was no time to go hit up my house across town to grab my 'real camera'. I'm just glad HTC has spent time improving thier camera quality to the level they have. A PureView camera would have been even nicer.

You are ignoring the point we are making. Cell phone cameras are good point and shoot cameras. If you want GOOD quality photos your cellphone will never be your first choice. If it's all you have then it's all you have. If you had access to a DSLR then something tells me you would have taken those wedding photos with that camera instead of your cellphone.

And the PureView is a massive improvement on existing cell phone cameras as they exist today, and competes very well with top end point and shoots. It also takes 'good' quality photos, although not professional quality. No one is claiming it is a pro camera.

Quote:

And sorry but no a real camera (DSLR) is superior to any cell phone which is why people who like photography and want to take the best photos they can and have the most control over shooting go with a real camera over a cell phone camera which isn't meant to be used to take serious high quality images. When photographers start using cell phone cameras to take photos in the studio and on site THEN talk to me.

Why should I care what photographers use? I am not a professional photographer nor do I wish to be. I am a normal person who has life experiences that I sometimes wish to capture. I'm happy that my 'low end' camera is now competitive with what was high end ten years ago, and that it fits in my pocket and has other functions that keep it with me at all times.

You keep saying that if I had had my DSLR I'd have used it. Sure, of course I would. But that misses the point. I will *never* have my DSLR with me. Its large, clunky, and expensive to replace. It gets pulled out when I go on trips or to something that is special that was planned ahead of time. It works great for those purposes. But it is terrible when it comes to the most important feature: Actually being with me when something occurs that is photo worthy but unplanned. So the fact that it can take superior photos is completely irrelevent to me, as a user who takes pictures.

Quote:

Subjective... LOL!

I have zero idea why you are wrapped up in bashing on PureView. Its not replacing your DSLR. Nokia is not claiming it is trying to replace your DSLR. Nobody is claiming that. It is replacing the current point and shoot market. And thats a good thing.

More light reaches the sensor, but it'll all be hitting the parts of the sensor that you'll be cropping out when you do the digital zoom anyway. There's no free lunch this way, there's only so many literal photons coming through the hole in the front of your camera that came from where you are zooming into. That white paper is nonsense.

What are you talking about? The white paper clearly says that you lose the advantage of the "oversampling" when you zoom in. Pureview gets you the optimal picture quality when you don't zoom and they never claim otherwise. It says so, right at the bottom of page 3.

They are trying to claim digital zoom is superior to optical zoom in the part I quoted.

More light reaches the sensor, but it'll all be hitting the parts of the sensor that you'll be cropping out when you do the digital zoom anyway. There's no free lunch this way, there's only so many literal photons coming through the hole in the front of your camera that came from where you are zooming into. That white paper is nonsense.

What are you talking about? The white paper clearly says that you lose the advantage of the "oversampling" when you zoom in. Pureview gets you the optimal picture quality when you don't zoom and they never claim otherwise. It says so, right at the bottom of page 3.

I never Zoom my camera phone, you want to know why? Because they all use digital zoom due to having fixed length lens and it is pointless, just crop it afterwards on PC for a better image.

Fhnuzoag wrote:

They are trying to claim digital zoom is superior to optical zoom in the part I quoted.

But in this case their digital zoom is better than the alternative, non existent optical zoom on other camera phones. If only because the non zoomed images you take most of the time are far better.

They are trying to claim digital zoom is superior to optical zoom in the part I quoted.

I didn't see any quotation marks in the message I replied to. What did you quote and from what page was that quote?

Edit: Oh, I see now. You quoted someone else's quote. However that doesn't actually change the point. Nokia is factually correct when they claim that less light tends to get into the sensor when you increase the zoom. Most zoom lenses let less light through when you zoom in and usually only the very expensive objectives maintain their f-number.

A single larger pixel reduces its SNR by having more photon-capture events. A pixel, basically, multisamples itself. If you're getting a better result from sampling smaller photosites, it's because they have a larger collective surface area and are collecting more photons in total.

Yes, a pixel does multisample itself.. in a very simple and not very smart way.

Sure higher megapixel wouldn't help if the image processing was writen by someone as unknowagable as you, but for your information, there are algorithms much better at reducing noise than simply adding and averaging.

This isn't about including a SLR. This is about getting the most performance out of a fixed size of CCD. There's nothing that's been said that suggests a mechanism by which cutting up a CCD and adding back together again gets more performance out of a fixed size of CCD. You *can* put a bigger CCD into a phone, Nokia have shown that. But they have gone about it in a most idiotic way that increases cost and potentially wastes a lot of what they've added.

If this is their strategy, they'll fail the second someone cottons on to this market existing, sells a large-CCD cameraphone without the 41MP gimmick, and so produces a cameraphone that takes better photos and is $200 cheaper. The 808 Pureview, as a camera, is a DSLR price range camera that doesn't take anywhere near DSLR quality photos.

When you try to zoom in your large CCD to take a picture on a fixed lens phone setting, hence restricted to digital zoom, the 41MP gimmick will show your non-gimmicky senor what good looking zoomed in smartphone photography can be. Apparently, you are forgetting the zooming part of all this. Sure, an SLR can take great pictures with a big sensor of less MP, but they have a bunch of optic capabilities that smartphones lack. That is the point of this sensor. Would that $200 cheaper sensor you talk about be able to take a 10x zoom picture that looks reasonable (note the reasonable, not great) relying solely on digital zoom?

If this is their strategy, they'll fail the second someone cottons on to this market existing, sells a large-CCD cameraphone without the 41MP gimmick, and so produces a cameraphone that takes better photos and is $200 cheaper.

Cost depends on the production volume much more than on anything else. 41Mpx or 8Mp - it's not that big difference after all .

Consumers were sold, for a decade, and very successfully, than more megapixels is better. Consumers want zoom: they want to precisely frame picture while not changing their position, and get both wide angle (like 25mm equivalent) and telephoto (like 80mm eq) w/o moving their feet, and still getting the same megapixels (because more is better). And quality does matter all that much, because eventually this ends up viewed down-sampled, poorly, in 300x500 pixels size on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or whatever, for maximum 3 seconds.

Would anyone care about a 5mp point&shoot, with a Symbian phone inside, and no zoom lens, even with 1/2" sensor inside? No. Make that 40Mp, and it's suddenly a big media splash.

I'm talking about including a DSLR camera in cell phones. Or equivalent technology that doesn't exist yet. It will happen someday. Don't hold off on the purchases though, because it may be 10 years.

No, it will never happen. A modern cellphone may take higher resolution pictures than a camera with 30x30mm sensor from 30 years ago. And advances in digital signal processing made noise less objectionable to a human eye. However, when comparing technology of the same era, there always going to be a difference.

Also, look at what happened in the last decade, explosive development of digital cameras, and embedded processors got probably 1000s times faster. Still, good point & shoots from 2001, like Canon G1 or S30, they still make better pictures, in technical terms, than most smartphones.

They are trying to claim digital zoom is superior to optical zoom in the part I quoted.

I didn't see any quotation marks in the message I replied to. What did you quote and from what page was that quote?

Edit: Oh, I see now. You quoted someone else's quote. However that doesn't actually change the point. Nokia is factually correct when they claim that less light tends to get into the sensor when you increase the zoom. Most zoom lenses let less light through when you zoom in and usually only the very expensive objectives maintain their f-number.

The very physics of it is extremely simple, the light zooming a lens gets rid of is *exactly* the light you don't want. Nokia could argue in favour of shining a torch into their lens aperture to 'get more light on to the sensor', and it'll do as much good.

Quote:

When you try to zoom in your large CCD to take a picture on a fixed lens phone setting, hence restricted to digital zoom, the 41MP gimmick will show your non-gimmicky senor what good looking zoomed in smartphone photography can be. Apparently, you are forgetting the zooming part of all this. Sure, an SLR can take great pictures with a big sensor of less MP, but they have a bunch of optic capabilities that smartphones lack. That is the point of this sensor. Would that $200 cheaper sensor you talk about be able to take a 10x zoom picture that looks reasonable (note the reasonable, not great) relying solely on digital zoom?

The Nikon 1 V1 seems to do pretty well, and is $300 cheaper than the Pureview 808. It's not a DSLR.

Reflect you are wasting your time. Clearly people saw 41 mp + phone and most their shit and got in bashing mode before doing any reading. Then after you and others have explain to them why this isn't a gimmick they continue to bash the camera for no it being as good as DSLR; this clearly shows they are missing the whole point.

People on ars can spot gimmicks , and they know what high quality cameras are.

BTW: just because I have a DSLR, doesn't mean my photos will turn out amazing; its a reason why photography is a profession.

Big sensor, big good quality lens, and reasonable number of jiggapixels. Omit any one of the three and the images won't be that good.

Provide all three, and quite possibly the won't be any images, because this medium or large format camera will stay in the closet.

That's right. We carry phones with us all the time. I mean all the time. Some of us even use them as wallets. Soon we'll be using them to start our cars and unlock front doors. So we always have that camera with us.

Which is why I said we should accept what we can get until we find a way of incorporating SLR into a cell phone. It seems impossible today, yeah? HA! Nothing is impossible. Someday there will be an Ars article about a 1mm sq SLR sensor outperforming the best large SLR sensors. Then there will be another article about some new mineral outperforming glass in optics applications. Then a year later Apple, Canon, Nikon Nokia etc. will be using that tech in their products.

This isn't about including a SLR. This is about getting the most performance out of a fixed size of CCD. There's nothing that's been said that suggests a mechanism by which cutting up a CCD and adding back together again gets more performance out of a fixed size of CCD. You *can* put a bigger CCD into a phone, Nokia have shown that. But they have gone about it in a most idiotic way that increases cost and potentially wastes a lot of what they've added.

If this is their strategy, they'll fail the second someone cottons on to this market existing, sells a large-CCD cameraphone without the 41MP gimmick, and so produces a cameraphone that takes better photos and is $200 cheaper. The 808 Pureview, as a camera, is a DSLR price range camera that doesn't take anywhere near DSLR quality photos.

^ THIS

That last paragraph is an utter load of bull. The 808 is first and foremost a phone, NOT a camera. If you start comparing a smartphone with a dSLR it's obvious that the phone won't have the same image quality, yet you manage to bring that in.

The Nokia whitepaper, which Fhnuzoag basically dismissed as pure junk, explains what they did in order to have better performance from a "cut-up" CCD, since the sensor was designed for oversampling as much as it was for digital zoom. If you actually took the time to read it you'd understand the compromises behind it and not just slapping an 8MP sensor of the same size.

Reflect you are wasting your time. Clearly people saw 41 mp + phone and most their shit and got in bashing mode before doing any reading. Then after you and others have explain to them why this isn't a gimmick they continue to bash the camera for no it being as good as DSLR; this clearly shows they are missing the whole point.

People on ars can spot gimmicks , and they know what high quality cameras are.

BTW: just because I have a DSLR, doesn't mean my photos will turn out amazing; its a reason why photography is a profession.

People should read this and if they still come back talking shit you should ignore them permanently. DPReview know far more about cameras than anyone to do with Arstechnica and they says it a good camera.

I don't think a single person in this thread has claimed it to be a bad camera for a smartphone--it's a great camera. What's being debated it whether it's a great camera in part because it has a 41MP CCD or despite of it. The camera in these phones take up a lot more space than the cameras on other smartphones--it's not "fair" to compare it directly to the much smaller camera in, say an iPhone 5, if you want to ascribe the difference to having 41MP and using some image processing.

If you think you can develop what Nokia did with Pureview for less money while maintaining image quality, go ahead and do it instead of posting on a website about how it is possible. You could make a lot of money!

The very physics of it is extremely simple, the light zooming a lens gets rid of is *exactly* the light you don't want. Nokia could argue in favour of shining a torch into their lens aperture to 'get more light on to the sensor', and it'll do as much good.

When cropping the big picture, you also get rid of *exactly* the light you don't want.

Whether you get better results by enlarging the center of the image optically ("teleconverters" like 1.4x or 2x available for DSLRs do that) or digitally (by just cropping the center of the frame after) depends on many factors. Results are comparable, and some professional DSLRs used to have digital crop built-in.

Quote:

The Nikon 1 V1 seems to do pretty well, and is $300 cheaper than the Pureview 808. It's not a DSLR.

A toy camera from a dollar store satisfies many customers, and makes and receives calls as well as Nikon V1, and it's no less than $300 dollars cheaper too

The whole point is to have a single and relatively compact multifunctional device. Typically, it won't be as good as device doing a single function for the same, or even smaller, price.

They are trying to claim digital zoom is superior to optical zoom in the part I quoted.

I didn't see any quotation marks in the message I replied to. What did you quote and from what page was that quote?

Edit: Oh, I see now. You quoted someone else's quote. However that doesn't actually change the point. Nokia is factually correct when they claim that less light tends to get into the sensor when you increase the zoom. Most zoom lenses let less light through when you zoom in and usually only the very expensive objectives maintain their f-number.

The very physics of it is extremely simple, the light zooming a lens gets rid of is *exactly* the light you don't want. Nokia could argue in favour of shining a torch into their lens aperture to 'get more light on to the sensor', and it'll do as much good.

I think what Anomnomnymous Cowhead and Nokia are saying is that typical lenses don't lose *exactly* the light you don't want; they lose more, because the lens system isn't perfect. And only very expensive lenses don't lose relatively more light.

If the physics were as simple as you say they are, then why are there cheap and expensive lenses?

They are trying to claim digital zoom is superior to optical zoom in the part I quoted.

I didn't see any quotation marks in the message I replied to. What did you quote and from what page was that quote?

Edit: Oh, I see now. You quoted someone else's quote. However that doesn't actually change the point. Nokia is factually correct when they claim that less light tends to get into the sensor when you increase the zoom. Most zoom lenses let less light through when you zoom in and usually only the very expensive objectives maintain their f-number.

The very physics of it is extremely simple, the light zooming a lens gets rid of is *exactly* the light you don't want. Nokia could argue in favour of shining a torch into their lens aperture to 'get more light on to the sensor', and it'll do as much good.

Quote:

When you try to zoom in your large CCD to take a picture on a fixed lens phone setting, hence restricted to digital zoom, the 41MP gimmick will show your non-gimmicky senor what good looking zoomed in smartphone photography can be. Apparently, you are forgetting the zooming part of all this. Sure, an SLR can take great pictures with a big sensor of less MP, but they have a bunch of optic capabilities that smartphones lack. That is the point of this sensor. Would that $200 cheaper sensor you talk about be able to take a 10x zoom picture that looks reasonable (note the reasonable, not great) relying solely on digital zoom?

The Nikon 1 V1 seems to do pretty well, and is $300 cheaper than the Pureview 808. It's not a DSLR.

And it still has a movable optical zoom, among other optical amenities that smartphones lack, so my point stands.

Edit: and if you are going to factor in the price, the Nikon doesn't make calls, run apps, browse the web, play music and video, etc..

Pureview 808's 41MP is a significant step forward because it brings humongous resolution AND physical sensor size. In daylight, we CAN utilize those dense pixels. So you get either 1) exceptionally high resolution output, or 2) digital zoom that's much superior to competition. For low light shooting, 41MP doesn't mean as much. Same sensor size with 8MP would perform similarly. BUT, 808's sensor size is HUGE compared to competition. That's why it also performs so well in low light, not because it has 41MP. Those are the advantages of 808 in nutshell.

Pureview 920 brings entirely new innovation -- world's first OIS in phone camera. Here you are not making any leap forward in daylight shooting because OIS doesn't help much because of already fast shutter speed. Where it really shines is in low light condition when shutter speed gets very slow. OIS stabilizes the lens so much that you get about 10 times (i.e. 3.5 "stops") the light gathering capability with the 920 compared to the competition with similar sensor size but no OIS. That's an incredible achievement.

It's not clear whether the new Pureview model is just a port of the 808 or, more ideally, a combination of the 808 and the 920.

If you think you can develop what Nokia did with Pureview for less money while maintaining image quality, go ahead and do it instead of posting on a website about how it is possible. You could make a lot of money!

I don't think you can patent "what everyone else is doing," successfully. Nokia's camera is better primarily because it's bigger, and can therefore house a bigger CCD, better lenses, etc. The rest of the industry sees making phones thinner and smaller while packing them full of batteries as more important--there's no technical barrier to following suit with a similarly sized, but lower resolution, camera.

Has any of the ARS commenters in this thread took a scientific approach to actually look at the results from Nokia's claims?

The 808 Pureview (41MP) smartphone camera released early 2012 has a VERY loyal following from actual photographers. The pictures they take are quite stunning. There is an abundance of pictures on Flickr. Just search for the 808 Pureview tag.

There also exists sites that have dumped the actual high res files off the 808 phone that have been around for almost a year. From those photos you can perform your own zoom to see the immediate clarity that comes from Nokia's method.

By all accounts, it is NOT a 41MP camera. It is a 41MP sampling, 8MP camera. And in most cases, more data results in more accurate results. Why are posters complaining about more sampling being useless?

People should read this and if they still come back talking shit you should ignore them permanently. DPReview know far more about cameras than anyone to do with Arstechnica and they says it a good camera.

We agree that this large, bulky, smartphone camera is good compared to other smaller phone cameras. What we don't believe is that this phone would do better than an 8 MP camera with the same area. Your reference doesn't address this at all.

People should read this and if they still come back talking shit you should ignore them permanently. DPReview know far more about cameras than anyone to do with Arstechnica and they says it a good camera.

We agree that this large, bulky, smartphone camera is good compared to other smaller phone cameras. What we don't believe is that this phone would do better than an 8 MP camera with the same area. Your reference doesn't address this at all.

All you have to do then is look at the pictures for yourself. Armchairng this one doesn't work because there are actual results out on the Internet.

Why? You can print 12 megapixels to well over 30 inches wide. You can do building size prints from 20+ (the current full frame dSLR) megapixels. Are they planning on using something bigger than a 35mm sensor or have they found a way to increase the pixel density to almost double what professional grade cameras are using now?

My guess would be resampling images larger, which does nothing to improve image quality.

Why? You can print 12 megapixels to well over 30 inches wide. You can do building size prints from 20+ (the current full frame dSLR) megapixels. Are they planning on using something bigger than a 35mm sensor or have they found a way to increase the pixel density to almost double what professional grade cameras are using now?

My guess would be resampling images larger, which does nothing to improve image quality.

Megapixels affect print size, not image quality.

How did you come to know about MP and print size? Personal application or some form of studying?

Here's a hint. Try reading Nokia's whitepaper on the subject and then search for actual results. You might find the answer to your question has nothing to do with print size at all.

By all accounts, it is NOT a 41MP camera. It is a 41MP sampling, 8MP camera. And in most cases, more data results in more accurate results. Why are posters complaining about more sampling being useless?

Actually it is and you can actually take 41MP pictures. Its not the reccomended mode, but yes if you want 41MP pictures, it can indeed take them. The reccomended mode though is 8MP using the extra MP for other quality improvements.

You might be right if the noise was linear, but it isn't. Read a bit about 1/f noise, add to that non linear noise reduction and you may realise that that will more than compensate the slight space lost between pixels.

Wow there. This isn't a signal transmission problem. We're talking about which detector is better- one big pixel or many little ones averaged together. This has nothing to do with pink noise. The detector has two main sources of noise. The first is readout noise. Readout noise (critical at low light) will be more for an individual larger detector, but not enough to equal the combined noise of all the little detectors required, therefore the big detector wins. The second source is photon counting noise (dominant most of the time). For this one it clearly makes no difference whether you have one big detector or several smaller ones. Put the two noise sources together, and you are left with a slight advantage for the big detector. Factor in that the big detector doesn't waste as much space between detector elements, and you get a slightly bigger advantage. Conclusion- a lower MP camera of a given area will produce less noisy images than a high MP camera of the same area in which the pixel values are combined to give the same resolution.

Vendors in fields where the customers aren't as easily tricked know this well and respect it. Medical CT systems, where contrast, and therefore signal to noise, is critical typically produce images that are 0.25 or 1 MP (gasp!). Why don't they cut up their detectors into tiny little pieces and average them together Nokia style? It would be easy, after all CT detector elements can be as big as 1 mm^2 (huge compared to phone cameras). The answer is because that would be stupid. It would drive up costs and image quality would have nowhere to go but down. (And yes, I am aware of the many other differences between optical range detectors and x-ray detectors, but the point still stands.)

Redo from start wrote:

And if we want to play education card, mine includes DSP, image processing, microelectronics and computer technology. I'm perfectly qualified to mess with you on this.

Wonderful, but you seem to be missing any qualifications related to detector design, which is what we are talking about. I'm sure once the images are taken you can move them and process them quite well :-)

Has any of the ARS commenters in this thread took a scientific approach to actually look at the results from Nokia's claims?

There isn't much science about it, it's all about compromises. Most people need a decent smartphone, which also has a camera, in that order. There are also people who want a decent point & shoot, and also a smartphone, in that order.

Sure, this it's the best camera in a phone today. And also, coincidentally, the bulkiest modern smartphone with the oldest OS. As photographic tool, 808 isn't anywhere as good, as, for example, Sony RX100, and resolution/noise is only a small part of the issue.

If the next iteration delivers a smaller device, with a better OS, while not sacrificing the camera part by much, it will find more loyal followers than 808 did.

People should read this and if they still come back talking shit you should ignore them permanently. DPReview know far more about cameras than anyone to do with Arstechnica and they says it a good camera.

We agree that this large, bulky, smartphone camera is good compared to other smaller phone cameras. What we don't believe is that this phone would do better than an 8 MP camera with the same area. Your reference doesn't address this at all.

All you have to do then is look at the pictures for yourself. Armchairng this one doesn't work because there are actual results out on the Internet.

Please point me in the direction of a comparison between this camera and a 8 MP one with the same area, same lens, same CCD manufacturing process, etc. I'd be most interested. I don't dispute that the images compare well to current phones, nor do I dispute that when you switch the Nokia from 41 MP to 8 MP mode noise goes down. What I do believe is that had they designed it as a physical 8 MP detector of the same area, behind the same lens, in the same phone, they could have produced better 8 MP images than what they got.

Has any of the ARS commenters in this thread took a scientific approach to actually look at the results from Nokia's claims?

There isn't much science about it, it's all about compromises. Most people need a decent smartphone, which is also has a camera, in that order. There are also people who want a decent point & shoot, and also a smartphone, in that order.

Sure, this it's the best camera in a phone today. And also, coincidentally, the bulkiest modern smartphone with the oldest OS. As photographic tool, 808 isn't anywhere as good, as, for example, Sony RX100, and resolution/noise is only a small part of the issue.

If the next iteration delivers a smaller device, with a better OS, while not sacrificing the camera part by much, it will find more loyal followers than 808 did.

So what you are saying (by quoting me out of context) is that you haven't looked at the results yourself, right? And that you can't definitively say that your statement is true?

People should read this and if they still come back talking shit you should ignore them permanently. DPReview know far more about cameras than anyone to do with Arstechnica and they says it a good camera.

We agree that this large, bulky, smartphone camera is good compared to other smaller phone cameras. What we don't believe is that this phone would do better than an 8 MP camera with the same area. Your reference doesn't address this at all.

All you have to do then is look at the pictures for yourself. Armchairng this one doesn't work because there are actual results out on the Internet.

Please point me in the direction of a comparison between this camera and a 8 MP one with the same area, same lens, same CCD manufacturing process, etc. I'd be most interested. I don't dispute that the images compare well to current phones, nor do I dispute that when you switch the Nokia from 41 MP to 8 MP mode noise goes down. What I do believe is that had they designed it as a physical 8 MP detector of the same area, behind the same lens, in the same phone, they could have produced better 8 MP images than what they got.

No. I'm not holding your hand on this. I gave very specific clues in this thread on how to obtain the information yourself.

So what you are saying (by quoting me out of context) is that you haven't looked at the results yourself, right? And that you can't definitively say that your statement is true?

I have seen the results myself, as was actually interested in this Nokia when it was announced.

In ideal circumstances the pictures are worse than that from a good P&S with comparable sensor size (RX100 is a good example, as it's also comparable in size), and in anything less than ideal (when it starts cropping/oversampling/ISO above 100) - much worse. Not as bad as other smartphones, but that's about it.